Monday, May 27, 2013

A fleeting moment of pride

We were on the east side of the state this weekend, checking out the progress on the house, going to the Detroit Zoo, and beginning the process of looking for a new church.

Yesterday's prospect was First Presbyterian Church in Brighton. The younger two boys are accustomed to going to Children's Church halfway through the service, so we knew it might be a challenge to keep all three quiet and still for the entire hour. My goal was to not be publicly embarrassed. 

Much to our shock, all three boys did great! TJ read quietly, Nolan was fairly good as long as he was in my lap, and Sam in particular seemed to be soaking in the service. It was Trinity Sunday and during the sermon, the minister out a picture of the Trinity up on the screen. He spent a long time talking about how they were sitting, what they were holding, the significance of their clothes...it was quite interesting. Then the minister pointed out that the three of them were sitting at a table and that there was room for a fourth. That fourth person is you, he said. Picture it. At this moment, Sam leaned over and told Bill he was picturing himself in heaven with God. Bill was thrilled. Not only was Sam behaving, he was listening!!

After the service, we were warmly greeted by a number of people. One woman came up to me and said she was impressed with how well-behaved my children were. I had to fight the urge to turn around and see if she was talking to someone behind me. 

Today, Nolan was complaining to me that Christmas isn't coming fast enough. I said, 'Who needs Christmas? We have the whole summer ahead of us! We leave for vacation (our week in the Upper Peninsula) next week!

Nolan looked at me impatiently and said, "I don't want adventure! I want presents!"

Yep. Proud moment officially over. 

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Nolan-isms

Our Internet has been down most of the day, which makes it a bit tough for Bill to work from home. So, we played hooky for awhile this morning. Bill, Nolan, and I ran a few errands and enjoyed a sweet treat from Wealthy Street Bakery. On our way there, it started to rain. Our backseat driver instructed his father to "turn the windshield on!"

One of our stops was to the bank. Nolan was given a nice purple lollipop. He wasn't just eating it, he was experimenting with it. He kept saying, "Look, Mom! I put my teeth prints on it!" 

Nolan has had an intense fear of mosquitoes this spring. This is particularly unfortunate because there are TONS of them right now. They literally swarm you if you step outside. Nolan has been refusing to play outside and has been getting me up in the middle of the night to put ointment on his bites. Bill made a homemade mosquito trap (it involves yeast and an empty two-liter bottle) and put it in the garage to see if we could lower the mosquito population. Thus far, the trap hasn't caught a single bug. So Nolan's terror continues. He burst into tears when we got home from our errands. He was afraid to get out of the car and go in the house. 

It's shaping up to be a long spring...

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Elbows

The other day, Nolan informed me that I had 'big elbows'. Oh great. I had never once been self-conscious about my elbows. Now I'm going to be wondering if other people think they look big too. Ha!

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Mother's Day Part 2

Sam also gave me some hand-made gifts for Mother's Day. The first item was a giant paper hug...two hands stretched out, with the saying "I love you this muth".

The second item was a necklace. If you looked at this and said, "Hmmm. It looks like someone painted one of those adhesive hole reinforcers, added some glitter, and stuck it to a washer", well, you'd be exactly right. But Sam's mom wore it to church on Sunday anyway. Sam was thrilled. The look on his face was another gift to me!


Monday, May 13, 2013

Happy Mother's Day to Me

Yesterday was Mother's Day. My 'official' gift was a gorgeous arrangement of roses and lilies, along with a gift card to put toward new bedding for our new bedroom. 

But the boys are now old enough to contribute to Mother's Day. And their contributions are sweet, yet highly amusing. Case in point: my cookbook from TJ, which includes the following warning on the cover, 'You better use this thing'. 

Also highly amusing was the poem TJ wrote for me, in which he confided that I was 'sweat as a apple' and I make him 'happy as a bare'. I try. I really do. 



Thursday, May 9, 2013

Final score

We have a final score in the competition of Katie vs the corn plant. 

Katie 1, Corn Plant 0

As you can see by the picture below, only the bean plant is still growing. The corn is that brown thing lying on the dirt. I guess Katie bit the top off one too many times.

TJ was rather disgusted with Katie over this. 

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Tuesday Tidbits

Last night, Sam informed me that if I was a flower, he doesn't think I would have bloomed yet.

I don't have the foggiest idea how I'm supposed to interpret that.

TJ has a planting project he brought home from school.  He planted a bean plant and a corn plant (at least, that was what he told us he planted).  The bean plant has grown like crazy.  We've had to transplant it to a larger container since it outgrew its Dixie cup and it's still not warm enough to plant outside.  The corn plant, on the other hand, has had a tough go.  One of the cats thinks it tastes good.  It grows a few inches, and the cat bites off the growth.  We move it to a safe location (the Florida Room) and it grows again.  Someone (TJ) leaves the doors open to the Florida Room.  Corn plant gets chomped again.

For some reason, the thing hasn't given up and died...yet.  Yesterday, no one was home all day and the doors to the Florida Room were once again left open (once again, pretty sure TJ did it).  TJ walked in the house last night and started yelling that he had caught Katie 'right-handed'!  He could see her chewing on the plant!

I asked him if he meant 'red-handed'.  He doesn't really see the difference.  Hahaha!